The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports that each year more than 1 billion tonnes of food is wasted. Local startup, UglyFood, has found that foods that are not cosmetically attractive (or "ugly") are often wasted as they are viewed as less desirable to shoppers. The startup's founders saw this as both a business and social-impact opportunity. So far, the business has diverted more than 7,384 perfectly edible fruits and vegetables by transforming them into juices, smoothies and popsicles. We conducted an interview with UglyFood to learn about the organisation's mission, successes and future goals, as well as to shed light on how other startups can successfully grow their businesses.
When and how did UglyFood begin its operations? What is your company's long-term vision?
Pei Shan, the founder of UglyFood and an SUTD-SMU Double Degree Programme graduate, developed an interest in food four years ago when her grandmother was stricken with cancer. In hopes that fruits and vegetables would alleviate her grandmother’s health condition, she started reading about healthier food choices, such as fruit and vegetables, and learned how to make different fruits and vegetables juices. Upon stumbling across a video on Facebook about global food wastage, she then gathered a team to look into the issue of unnecessary food wastage in Singapore.
With her experience in making healthy foods and the awareness that food waste is avoidable and is present in Singapore, she decided to start a social enterprise, UglyFood. Uglyfood’s vision is to accelerate the minimization of the impact of food wastage on the rapidly deteriorating health of our planet and the reduction of food-related poor health outcomes.
How Does UglyFood stand out from its competitors?
UglyFood approaches and establishes relationships with stakeholders such as wholesalers, importer, distributors and wet market stall owners to gather fresh produce that would otherwise be wasted. Uglyfood innovates on the recipes we use and always puts the health of our customers as priority.
What else does UglyFood do to be environmentally friendly?
We try as much as possible to use packaging that is less harmful to the environment. For example, for our fruit tea series and our signature cold-press juice series, we use glass bottles that are reused. Also, the fresh produce we take in are ones that would otherwise go to waste. When we transform these fruits and vegetables into appealing, nutritious and delectable food products (fruit teas, cold-pressed juices, and popsicles) for our customers.